Christmas Eve

 It was a Christmas Eve like no other for us. It was different being on our own for Christmas, but we had so much together as a family! We rode our bikes to the park and enjoyed the beautiful sunshine and warm temperatures while thinking of all our family up in the cold.  I'm pretty sure this was the first Christmas Eve we spent at the park, especially without coats!  Tayven LOVES the swing, and he gets even more excited when Breah is pushing him.  You should have heard the two of them laughing.  So cute!  And Breah loves her scooter!  Notice how she's wearing her helmet on the slide, but not while flying down the hill?  Yeah, mother of the year here!  She was all excited to wear it on the bike, and for the first few minutes of "scootering" but refused to wear it after that.  I need to be more strict, knowing our luck she'll be the next one on the plane!

After we'd had enough fun at the park we went home for Tay's nap and set out to make some cookies for Santa.  We decided on lollipop cookies.  I had to hurry and so some last minute shopping, and then we went and saw "Despicable Me" or as Breah calls it, "Two Eyes and One Eye," which we all thought was adorable! 

This being our first Christmas as a family, in our own home, we really wanted to start some new traditions.   The movie, the park, making cookies, the Christmas Jammies, those are all good, and traditions we will carry on, but my favorite by far was our shepherds dinner.  We really wanted to put the focus back on Christ rather than get all caught up in Santa and everything all night.  So after the movie, we came home and had a candlelight dinner of bread and cheese, talked about the shepherds and what they might have been eating in the fields that wondrous night and how they went out in search of the baby Jesus, then we sang primary christmas songs.  It was truly one of the most memorable times of any Christmas I've had and I can't wait to do it again next year  (sorry family...if we're with you next year, we'll probably make you do it too!)

After dinner we let the kids open their Christmas Eve presents-- new Jammies! Breah's were Tinkerbell and she LOVED them, there she is hugging them she loves them so much.  Tayven's had jungle animals and weren't Christmasy at all, but that's because he has 3 pairs of Christmas Jamms already!